I took it as more than mere accident that he had fallen thus helpless and suffering into my hands, and resolved to use to the utmost my skill and influence for the best.
He lay for a good many days—I cannot tell just how many—in a comatose condition, and I did not for a moment relax my watch, except to take a little rest now and then. At length there began to be signs of returning consciousness. The dull eyes would open and gaze vacantly around the room.
He could utter a few incoherent words, and the hands groped in a troubled way among the bed-clothes. And day by day, as the bronze tint of the skin disappeared, and the features grew clearer and thinner, that marvellous likeness grew stronger, until, looking at him, I rubbed my eyes sometimes, 190 and believed myself the victim of an hallucination.
One morning, at length, he opened his eyes, and looked at me with a new intelligence, an attentiveness that I had never seen in him before.
As he lay there with bright open eyes the likeness was simply intolerable, as I thought of the career that he represented. I busied myself in bringing the basin of water and sponge to bathe his face and hands. He was evidently trying to recall the circumstances of his injury and account for his presence there, for he looked in turn at me and the room, and then at the bed in which he lay.
“Mrs. Spencer, I cannot think how you come to be here. Was I much hurt?”
“Yes, you were pretty badly hurt, but you will soon be all right now if you keep quiet. Don’t move your head. I will wash your hands now.”
He closed his eyes as if weary with even the effort he had made, and soon fell asleep, as naturally as a child.